soupablog

we three kings - a free little song for you from soupablog

tonight when things slowed down a little, i set up an m-audio usb preamp/audio interface with the macbook pro and recorded me playing my new guitar. it's not perfect, but if you want a little paul soupiset recording for your epiphany, here ya go, free from soupablog (right-click the link to Save-As on your desktop):

Download WeThreeKings (MP3) 

- ( I know... the first couple of measures are God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen ... give it a second. sheesh.)

hello from cotton bowl

Austin gothic

a-caroling we will go (Ghent Altarpiece or Adoration of the Mystic Lamb)

 [by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432]

pret a manger

this is a pen & ink sketch i did for our worship service tomorrow.

birds' nest

Anagraph - Syler Thomas

some are more challenging than others. this one's for you, syler.

Emma with Tim Snyder's Hat

I'm in the Book of the Month!

"An Illustrated Life" has been picked by Amazon as one of the seven best books of the month! Yay!

Jordan

You may know, this is my twelve year old son, Jordan, shown here with wet hair that makes him look like a swimmer / rock star. My friend T.J. took this photo on Election Night with his new portrait lens.

Jordan and I went camping this weekend to my old stomping grounds --  Inks Lake and Longhorn Caverns -- with his Boy Scout patrol. It's really cool to see him growing up and taking on responsibilities and deepening his friendships with other guys we really like as well.

Jordan is one of the most sincere and forthright people I've ever met. I would never have guessed a son of mine would be brilliant in math and science, but he is. He's an inventor and a capitalist, a gamer and a good big brother. He's going to know how to treat girls and be a gentleman when he starts thinking about taking them out. He's good at grammar, at articulating his thoughts. He works better in 3-D than 2-D (he's more of a sculptor, for example, than a painter; he enjoys prototyping and machining new things)... He plays violin and nabbed second chair without taking lessons. He can pick out Coldplay melody lines on our piano with facility. And unlike me, he can identify cars and trucks by model name and year.

He's a great helper on camp-outs. He's learned stuff from my father and me about our preferred ways to do things on camp-outs, but is never a camping snob when around newbies. He's cultivated an amazing patience and kindness for folks on the margins, skids, and for those with disabilities.

He's a good kid.

Over the next five years he'll become a man and the apron strings will continue to loosen. But he's got my trust and confidence and love and attention.

--p

p.s.

the wind was blowing at the campout

ambigram - scott roche

here's an flip-vertical ambigram i recently completed for scott roche:

Ambigram: Menjivar

 

My friend and photographer Mark Menjivar approached me a couple of years ago to create this logotype for him. During my design process, I also had sketched out two (really rough) ambigrams, one of his full name and one of just his last name. I rediscovered these two roughs this morning while pulling some of Mark's original artfiles from my archives.

Mark Menjivar:

Menjivar:

like I said, really rough. But kind cool. I like 'em, anyway.

An Illustrated Life

 

Well, it arrived. My very own fat copy of An Illustrated Life, a luscious, full-color-throughout, 272-page behemoth featuring a "sneak peak into the wildly creative imaginations of top illustrators, designers and artists from around the world through the pages of their personal visual journals."

This book is exactly the kind of visual horn-a-plenty I always looked for, but never found in stores. Page after page of kindred spirits — folks from around the world who keep private sketchbook journals. 

Some of my images are right there on page 234-237. Hooray! Hooray!

Please support local booksellers and buy this from Viva Books.

In other good art news, I sold another painting today to a new friend from the west coast. You may remember EX VOTO from the Eucharist Series. I'm getting ready to crate it up and get it safely to San Francisco. There are still paintings and prints of mine at Viva Books all during December for all your Christmas presents. Prices range from $10 (giclée mini prints, matted) to $1200. And everything in between.

creative advent resources from your friends at soupablog

• Troy Bronsink's Advent Waiting site
• Advent Conspiracy
• Sacred Space (IE) Advent Site
• Thom M Shuman's well-written liturgies
• Gordon Atkinson's A Chistmas Story You've Never Heard
• Lilly Lewin's Blog has some great resources and links

mother and child and mother and child

proto-neo-outsider-sketchbookish-iconoclastic iconography with a twist.

so here's a little sketch from the show recently; guess who nabbed it?